Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? Yes!
Should you watch this more than once? If you like scaring yourself.
Score: 4.1/5
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 89 minutes (~1.5 hours)
“Blair Witch” is a found footage horror film that’s a sequel to 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project.” The brother of one of the victims from the first film returns to the haunted forest to look for his sister, but finds more than he expected. It stars James Allen McCune (James Donahue), Callie Hernandez (Lisa Arlington), Brandon Scott (Peter Jones), Corbin Reid (Ashley Bennett), Wes Robinson (Lane), and Valorie Curry (Talia).
“Blair Witch” is one of those films that sounds like it’ll be a boring pain to watch, but ends being a horror film that leave you so tense that it’s almost impossible to function for a day after that. It outshines every other horror movie this year, and will be probably the best horror film of the year (unless another horror movie appears that gives people heart attacks en masse). Its fairly unknown cast also helps to make the found footage aspect more authentic (and thus, terrifying), bolstering its status as the best horror movie this year so far.
Highlights
Uncertain, unreliable perspectives
While you might see everything that the protagonists see, since they’ve got their cameras strapped onto themselves, you also doubt your eyes thanks to their choice of perspective and the shaky camera. Some completely unbelievable events occur which can’t be easily explained, and when the characters simply refuse to look in the direction that you want them too, it turns them into unreliable narrators in a situation that’s already difficult to understand.
Constant unrelenting tension
“Blair Witch” never, ever lets up. Unlike most horror films which are kind enough to give you some breaks so that the ensuring horror never gets too stale, once the frights start in “Blair Witch,” they don’t stop. Thanks to the fact that the film takes place at night, you never know what’s going to jump out of the shadows, and the main characters are always staring into the darkness. You’ll find yourself clutching anything at hand by the end of the film.
The Blair Witch
There are no pictures of the Blair Witch online, because you never truly see her. Maybe a limb here or a silhouette there, but it’s all entirely up to your imagination. And that’s where the beauty of “Blair Witch” lies — it puts you in an incredibly stressful situation, and forces you to conjure your own image of the film’s antagonist, resulting in a witch that’s customised to the worst fears of each member of the audience.
Loud frights
If the visual frights weren’t enough, there are the things that go bump in the night. Except in “Blair Witch,” they sound more like monstrous explosions. You can’t tell how near the explosions really are (not the fault of the cinema’s audio, I assure you), which again makes it even more frightening because you already can’t rely on your sense of sight to anticipate the next haunting. Jump scares have nothing on the loud bangs in “Blair Witch.”
Letdowns
Shaky cam
You get used to the shaky cam by the middle of the film, but it’s disorienting and nauseating at the beginning. The film doesn’t ease you into the shaky cam style, but drops you right into it. It’s this disorientation which amplifies the frights, but during the expositional scenes, it can get rather tiresome.
“Blair Witch” is the most terrifying movie of 2016.
“Blair Witch” opens in cinemas:
– 15 September, 2016 (Singapore)
– 15 September, 2016 (Malaysia)
– 14 September, 2016 (Philippines)
This review was also published on Yahoo!.
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